SHEA WAITED as Trenton and Wilhelm conducted their checks of Fallon’s tent—though she didn’t see much point to it, given the guards stationed at all times at the entrance. She was tired, and the scratches and bites she’d received from the bandisox stung. She just wanted to get inside, bathe, and rest for a little bit before dinner.
Trenton gave her a nod, indicating it was safe. She pushed past him, grateful the outer chamber was empty.
Passing through the partition that separated the private quarters from the public ones, she headed for the mound of furs piled on their bed. A bath would take time to draw up. In the meantime, the bed called to her. A short platform covered by a thick mattress, it was the heaviest piece of furniture in the room. It was elegant in its simplicity, not approaching the ornateness or heaviness of a bed found in a Lowland or Highland home. The mattress managed to be soft and firm at the same time, a welcoming cloud of comfort that Shea was loath to leave more often than not. Before Fallon, she would have said that a soft place to sleep was an unimportant luxury. A few nights in his bed had changed her mind.
After sleeping on the hard ground last night and then running around the forest chasing bandisox, she was sore—something she would never have noticed before her time with Fallon and his bed. She’d become weak. Dependent on its stupid softness.
She studied the mattress with half a mind to demand its absence, or at least consider sleeping on the ground more often. She’d never do it, too addicted to the way it cradled bones long abused by the work she demanded of them, but it was a thought.
She turned and sat, falling sideways onto the pillow. Another comfort that she wouldn’t have said was important before now.
The pillow made an odd crinkling sound. She frowned. It had never done that before. She sat back up and stared down at it, noticing the edge of paper sticking out from under it. A note. It must have shifted when Shea had head-planted onto the pillow.
She picked it up, curious. Fallon hadn’t struck her as the type to leave messages. She felt a thrill of excitement. Perhaps she had just discovered a previously unknown side of him.
The discovery felt like a gift, much like the feeling after visiting a place where she knew few had ever walked before. Excited, awed, and just a little bit humbled—she felt an odd mishmash of feelings that put a tight feeling in her throat. She’d never felt such things for a person before. It was something to think about.
With eager hands, she unfolded the note, careful not to accidentally tear the paper in her excitement.
She smoothed it flat. Her excitement turned to confusion as she read the words. The letter fell to her side as she stared unseeing at the canvas walls, the words burned into her mind.
Come home.
Bring your friends.
A short message but a powerful one.
Shea didn’t have time to process, to decide on a course of action before Fallon was pushing through the partition. Shea wasn’t able to mask her unease before Fallon took note of her. He stopped at the sight of her, his big body going on alert as he examined the small space for potential threats.
“What is it?” Fallon asked, his eyes sharp and assessing as he noticed the slightly lost expression on Shea’s face.
Shea stared back at him blankly. What did she say? Should she say anything?
Fallon’s eyes dropped to the note in Shea’s hands, correctly concluding that the piece of paper was what had so unsettled her. “What is that?”
Fallon advanced on Shea, taking a seat beside her, his presence a coiled, wild thing. The potential for violence was in every line of his body. Not against Shea. She’d never once felt threatened by him, not even when she had considered him, if not the enemy, then a potential hostile force. This violence was directed at whatever had threatened her, and against it, he would have no mercy.
She stared at him, noting how his gaze went to the note in her hand. He didn’t reach for it, allowing her to decide.
She loved him for that. He could be such a dominant force, dictatorial, hard-headed, but when it counted—at least with her—he was patient. He recognized some things could not be forced. Even if you were a warlord used to getting your way.
How would things change once she revealed the note? Because they would.
There was no point hiding it. Nor would it have been right to do so, even if her first instinct was to pretend the note never existed. There was this dread in her, as if the note would signal a change so profound it would affect everything that had come before.
“I came in because I needed a moment to myself,” Shea said. The note had thrown her off balance. It took a minute to find her words. “I’m not used to so many people all the time. It can be difficult.”
Fallon’s eyes had an intense focus as he scanned her face. “This is why you’ve been ducking your guards.”
The statement surprised a laugh out of Shea. “I see Caden had a little chat with you.”
His touch on her shoulder was gentle, there and gone in one moment to the next. “Of course, he did. He knew I’d want to know.”
Of course, he had. Shea had known she wouldn’t have much chance of convincing Caden otherwise. The loyalty of Fallon’s Anateri would always be to him first and foremost.
“I hadn’t realized that you were slipping away to escape the press of humanity though.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
His expression was slightly lost as he looked at her—like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. There was an edge in his eyes, a heightened awareness.
“You know how I feel about your safety.” She looked away. Yes, she did. That was the problem. His sigh was heavy. “Perhaps we can find a compromise.”
It wasn’t a capitulation, but it was a start.
“I came in here because I wanted a moment.” She gave him the letter. “I found this. At first I thought it was from you.”
She didn’t say anything else, letting him read the words and draw his own conclusions.
Fallon read the note, his forehead furrowing. He read it once, twice, then a third time. His confusion transformed to understanding, and then into an incandescent rage—his expression filling with wrath, forming a visage terrifying enough that Shea could understand why villages surrendered immediately when he rode up to their front gates. His face was the stuff of nightmares, reminding people that there were monsters in the world. He was so darkly intimidating that Shea knew if he ever aimed such an expression her way that she’d surrender too. That, or run really far away to a place he could never find her.
“You’re not going,” he roared. He was on his feet and out of the room in the next moment.
Shea stared after him, surprised at the vehemence of his response. Concern in her eyes, Daere pushed aside the partition that had been partially ripped down and now sported a fist sized hole in the screen.
“What happened? Daere asked.
“A note was left for me.”
“What was in the note?”
“It was from my people. They asked me to come home.”
Daere gave a long whistle, the sound surprising from a woman Shea had always thought of as reserved and proper. “That would do it.”
Fallon burst out of his tent, roaring for Caden and Darius—the note, the wretched, loathsome note, clutched in his hand. The familiar need to tear and rend ate at him. With no enemy in sight, he forced the feelings down. When he was younger, he didn’t have such control, and with no outlet for his emotions, they would build up until he savaged any warrior in striking distance. Henry had helped him find ways to channel that bottomless anger, turning it into fuel for battle, and later conquest.
He could control it now, but this note and all it stood for tested that.
“Darius, Caden.”
He would wipe this interloper from the face of this world—this person who had dared invade his home, who had threatened to take his Telroi. No. This would not stand. He would end this insignificant maggot in such an unpleasant way that Shea’s people would never chance sending another person to steal her from him again. There would be cautionary tales told about this individual after Fallon got done tearing him apart with his bare hands.
Caden and several of Fallon’s Anateri approached at a run, their hands on their swords as they scanned the area for threats.
“Fallon, what is it?” Caden’s expression was cautious. He was the only one to look at Fallon, the rest of the Anateri were busy focusing on any incoming threats.
Their efficiency helped to calm some of the turbulent rage Fallon felt.
“This,” his voice nearly a hiss, he thrust the note at Caden.
Caden took it as Fallon paced back and forth like a caged animal. The other guards were careful not to get too close, giving him the space to move as he needed. Wilhelm and Trenton waited by the entrance to Fallon’s tent. They’d come to attention when he burst out of it, but hadn’t moved from their guard positions.
The sight of them doing their job helped clear Fallon’s mind further, enough that he was no longer thinking about doing bodily harm to the guards who had let this interloper slip through his security to leave that note on Shea’s pillow.
What if she’d been there when this person invaded their space? What if he’d convinced Shea to follow him home? Fallon could feel that crouching rage begin to consume him again at the thought of losing her.
It took Caden seconds to read it. Like Fallon, he read it more than once. “I’m not sure I understand.” His words were cautious as he looked up at Fallon.
“They want her back. She found it on her pillow in our tent—someone came into our home and left this on her pillow. They trespassed on our private space.”
“Fallon.” Darius approached at a quick pace. “I got word that you wanted me.”
Witt, one of the Highlanders who had been part of the group caught with Shea, followed behind Darius. He looked curious and his face was filled with trepidation at facing an enraged warlord. The years had carved crow’s feet into the corners of his eyes, and his mouth was bracketed with deep grooves. He was a serious man, one who weighed every word twice before it left his mouth.
Fallon had given him to Darius to keep an eye on when it was clear that the man had a bit of a soft spot for Shea. To Fallon’s surprise, Darius had found him useful and used him to spot check his men. He was good at finding the flaws in their training and had a good head on his shoulders.
“Give him the note,” Fallon ordered.
Caden complied, handing Darius the note.
“How did they get into our quarters, Caden?”
Caden’s face was grim and his eyes filled with a burning anger that almost matched Fallon’s own. He took any perceived failure as a personal deficiency. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
“You do that, and then you make sure this never happens again.”
Caden gave a sharp nod and turned to one of the guards who’d followed him when Fallon had called. “Find me the two men who were on duty this afternoon. I want them in front of me in the next five minutes.”
The other man nodded, his face equally grim. All of them knew that the lives of the two men who’d been on guard duty depended on what they had to say.
“Who is this from?” Darius asked. He turned the note over examining the other side before flipping it over to look at the handwriting on the front. Witt read over his shoulder, his eyebrows drawing to a deep V.
“It was left for Shea. Who do you think it’s from?” Fallon didn’t have the patience for stupid questions.
Darius nodded. “Whoever left it didn’t use our paper. I don’t recognize this blend.”
“It’s from the pathfinders,” Witt said. “Their stationary always has a faint bluish tinge to it. This won’t be the last note, I’d wager.”
Fallon stilled as a thought occurred to him. “Shut down the camp; no one leaves. Whoever left this isn’t one of us. They may still be here. Search every tent, every nook and cranny of this place until you find them.”
Darius turned and strode off, snapping orders as he made Fallon’s command a reality.
“You, stay. I want to know what else you know about the pathfinders,” Fallon ordered before Witt could follow Darius.
The man nodded, his eyes solemn. “I’m not sure how much more I can share. I’ve told your people everything I could remember.”
“Tell me again.”
“If it’ll help.”
Fallon felt a little of his anger ease. Darius would do everything in his power to find this person or persons. Fallon wanted to be out there too, searching for this invader. It would give him no greater pleasure than to hunt him down and teach him the error of his ways.
For now, he had a few other things to take care of before he could join the hunt. He strode over to Trenton and Wilhelm, both of whom watched him come with an alert cautiousness that wasn’t normally present.
“I want one of you with Shea at all times, even when she’s here. She’s not to leave your sight until this person is found.”
The two men shared an uneasy look, both aware of how much trouble that would bring them with Fallon’s Telroi.
Fallon acknowledged their hesitation, knowing it wasn’t a reaction to his order. They were beginning to feel some loyalty to Shea. That was good. It was what he was hoping for, that they would feel the same need to protect her that they did him. He couldn’t entrust this task to her friends from the scouts, knowing they didn’t have the skills or desire needed to become an Anateri.
He made it easy on them. “Say the order came from me. She can take up her dissatisfaction with me later.”
Trenton gave him a wry look. “I do not envy you that task. I’ve been caught on her bad side on more than one occasion and still have the bruises on my ego after she got through with me.”
Fallon grunted. That was one of the things he liked about the woman. She always pushed back, never letting him have an inch if she could help it. She challenged him. It was something that had been missing from his life for a long time before her.
He turned to Witt. “With me.”
Witt followed as they headed for a tent adjacent to Fallon’s. It was where he conducted less friendly talks—the ones that might involve a more forceful display of his prowess. The tent was stripped of civilized trappings. It wasn’t a place one lingered voluntarily.
There were no rugs on the ground to soften one’s step. There was only one place to sit and that was on the ground. There was a table, but it contained devices only welcome in a nightmare—devices meant to compel someone to spill their inner-most secrets.
Witt waited patiently by the entrance while Fallon prowled the small space. Patience wasn’t always Fallon’s strong suit, unless it was the patience needed for a hunt.
Fallon gave the other man credit, not once did Witt eye the space with fear. Instead he was a calm next to Fallon’s storm.
“Start from the beginning,” Fallon ordered. He folded his large arms and gave Witt a long stare, the kind of stare that drilled through a person’s mask down to the soul beneath. It was meant to intimidate, to cause a man to squirm.
Witt stepped forward, his expression open as he held his hands wide as if to say he had nothing to hide. “As I’ve said before, Shea would be the best person for this. She was a pathfinder and knows more than me.”
That wasn’t an option. Not right now. Not in this situation. She was too close to this.
“Tell me what you can. I want to hear it again.”
Witt was quiet for a long moment as he gathered his thoughts. His lips pulled down in a frown. “You know the pathfinders fulfill a vital role in the Highlands. They are the connective tissue that maintains what passes for civilization. Without them, the Highlands would be a collection of isolated villages that would probably fade and die given enough time. The pathfinders keep the communication and trade lines open. It’s still isolated but nowhere what it would be without them.”
Fallon’s eyes were shadowed as he stared at Witt. He folded his muscular arms over his chest and adopted a wide-legged stance, as if he was bracing for whatever might come.
When he didn’t interrupt, Witt continued, “They’re also the only thing that passes for a government, though they’re really only concerned about the tithes owed them, and that their pathfinders stay safe. Anger them and they’ll cut your village off—excise it from the maps. Villages don’t usually last long after that.” Witt’s face darkened and his gaze turned inward as if he was remembering something painful. He shook his head coming back to the present. “There are rumors that they have ways to call beasts down on those villages that displease them.”
“What do you think?”
Witt frowned in thought. “I think it’s too big a coincidence how quickly the excised villages fall into ruin. They do it rarely—only twice that I’ve heard of—but when they excise a village there are few survivors.”
Ruthless—but Fallon didn’t fault them for that. It was something he would do himself, though he wouldn’t let the beasts do his dirty work. He’d ride into a village that threatened one of his own and kill the offenders face to face. It was more satisfying that way. It had the added benefit of making the rest fear you that much more. Fear, he’d found, was a powerful motivator for good behavior.
“Shea has mentioned there are different kinds of pathfinders.”
Witt’s nod was slow in coming. “It’s not something they advertise. The pathfinders who serve the villages seem to be at the low end of their hierarchy. The smaller the village, the lower the status of the pathfinder. They send other pathfinders out into the remote corners of the Highlands and beyond.”
“Their purpose?”
Witt shook his head. “I don’t know. I only know about them because they hooked up with a caravan I’d joined when I was younger and trying to find a place for myself. They stayed with us for a month and then broke away to press further north.”
“Perhaps they were heading to another village.”
“There were no villages beyond our destination. I’ve never heard of a settlement where they were heading. Nothing up there but snow, mountains and beasts. As far as I could figure it, they were just looking around—exploring because they could.”
Fallon grunted. That would fit with what he knew of Shea. She might have served as a village pathfinder, but he suspected that wasn’t all she was. Her social skills were too poor and her mind too curious. He could see her exploring a remote stretch of land—so isolated that no one had ever visited it before—just to see what was there.
It was one of the things he loved about her, and one of the things he hated. That need to explore, the restlessness he could see in her eyes sometimes. It made him feel like he was trying to lay claim to air. There one moment and gone the next. He sometimes had nightmares of waking up and reaching for her, only to find her gone.
“They also have a type that they call a ‘keeper,’” Witt said. “From what I understand from talking with other pathfinders, the keeper safeguards the knowledge they’ve gleaned through their service to the Highlands. I knew this guy from before, who said the pathfinders had a room in their keep that held all their knowledge from even before the cataclysm, great histories of a time lost to us. Art that has not been seen in nearly a millennium. Wonders that have long passed from this world.”
Fallon found himself curious about these keepers. The ancients were said to have powerful weapons beyond anything that existed today. Such weapons might enable him to build an empire not seen since the cataclysm. The histories also interested him, having found that the mistakes of the past often formed the present. There was much that could be learned from their predecessors.
The Trateri had a strong oral tradition, passing stories of their great battles and strong leaders from one generation to the next. However, these stories tended to change after so many retellings until some clans had drastically different versions of the same story. Further, when a clan was wiped out, their stories and oral history died out with them. It left gaping holes in the history of his people.
“Have you ever met one of these keepers?” Fallon asked.
Witt shook his head. “They’re usually kept close to their stronghold. I’d wager they realized how dangerous it would be for someone with that kind of knowledge to be wandering around the Highlands.”
Fallon would expect as much. Someone armed with the knowledge these keepers were said to possess would have great power—dangerous power if it fell into the wrong hands.
These pathfinders and their hoard of knowledge reminded Fallon of a story the Trateri told as a cautionary tale to their young. In some versions the story featured an old man close to his deathbed, in others, it was a woman in her middle years. Both versions agreed that the person spent his or her life accruing material wealth—rugs of the softest material and finest weaving, tapestries from the best artisans among the Trateri people, and gold gilded furniture for them to rest their weary bones. Always gathering more and more. Every time their clan picked up and moved to the next hunting ground, to the summer camp or the winter camp, it would take longer and longer for this person to pack for the journey—until one day, they couldn’t pack everything. Their clan offered to help for the small price of one item from the tent. Always this person refused, choosing to carry the burden of the possessions by themselves.
The story always ended with the old man and woman dying alone, far from their people as the terror of nature destroyed what they had spent their lifetime hoarding. In the end they lost everything and gained nothing.
These pathfinders and their knowledge of the world benefitted no one, including themselves, locked up in their stronghold where nothing could be shared.
“What about this mist?” Fallon asked. “Shea’s mentioned that her fellow pathfinders possess a similar ability to navigate its depths.”
Witt braced his hands on his hips and looked down, his face pensive. “I’m not sure how true that is.”
Fallon’s eyes sharpened, piercing in their intensity. “You’re suggesting she lied.”
Witt rubbed his neck with one hand, looking a shade uncomfortable. It reminded Fallon that Witt felt a depth of indebtedness that might affect how much he was willing to share. He didn’t blame the man for the feeling. No, he respected him for it, even as he knew he’d have to compensate for it, or find another way to get the information out of him.
“Not so much lied, as downplayed her abilities,” Witt finally said. “I’ve never heard of any pathfinder doing what she did when she went deeper to find you. It’s not just heard of; it’s damn near suicidal. I don’t think any other pathfinder could have done that. They wouldn’t have even tried.”
Fallon felt his blood freeze in his veins at that statement. Shea had not shared with him just how dangerous her actions had been. The thought that he could have lost her did not sit well with him. It made some of that rage that had been banked surge forward.
Whatever expression was on his face was fierce enough that Witt stiffened, looking very like prey when faced with a bigger, much deadlier predator.
Fallon took a deep breath. He needed to maintain control. Losing his shit right then would help nothing and could cost him more than he was willing to afford. He had an invader to hunt and a woman to confront about her reckless actions.
“Even for a pathfinder, there are shades of abilities,” Witt continued when Fallon didn’t react further. The man was brave; Fallon would give him that. “Just like there are differences between great swordsmen. You pick your Anateri, your elite warriors, because they possess a level of ability, born with it or refined after endless hours of blood, sweat, and struggle. Shea lived and breathed that life. I don’t know what happened to get her demoted to the back edge of beyond, but I know her skills are not easily replicated or replaced. I wouldn’t count on other pathfinders showing the same level of ability when faced with the mist. Even they sometimes enter and don’t come out the other side.”
Fallon’s face was grim as Witt finished his speech. He rubbed his chin in thought. A half-formed plan had been forming after Shea’s display in ability—one that involved storming the Highlands to demand pathfinders for his army or finding a way to replicate their training in his own men. From what Witt had shared, that plan might not hold enough positive returns for such a risky undertaking.
That was to say nothing of the anger Shea would feel if he invaded her homeland. It was something he’d avoided until now, an action so at odds with his personality that some of his generals had questioned him. Among them was Braden, who upon hearing that Fallon had no immediate plans to invade the Highlands, had expressed extreme reserve about Fallon’s relationship with Shea.
There were even whisperings of bewitchery and sorcery. As if Fallon was susceptible to such things. Those were ridiculous ideas designed to undermine Fallon and cast doubt upon Shea.
Fallon knew that he still had detractors among the Trateri. He could name three people off the top of his head who were actively plotting for his downfall so they could take over in his stead. It was one of the reasons he was so adamant that Shea have guards with her at all times. He knew she didn’t realize the danger, being utterly uninterested in Trateri politics, or any politics he’d guess.
The advent of this mist would give them further fuel for their fire.
He’d rotated Braden back into the fold to consolidate his power base. With Darius and Braden at his side—his two most powerful generals, he had a chance at withstanding some of the storms that were gathering.
“Is there anything else you can share?” Fallon asked.
Witt shook his head. “Shea would be your best resource. She was one of them. If anyone would understand their reasoning behind the note, she would.”
That was what Fallon feared.